dazzled sight.

"It is incredible," said Susanna. "A mere pin-point in that immensity,
yet he fills it full with his hosannas."

But the pin-point grew bigger, the hosannas louder; the bird was
descending.

"Literally it is music coming down upon us from heaven," she said.

"Yes--but when it reaches us, it will stop, we shall lose it," said
Anthony. "It is music too ethereal to survive the contact of this
gross planet."

Singing, singing, the bird sank, with folded wings; and sure enough,
the very instant he touched the earth, his song stopped short--a bubble
pricked, a light extinguished.

"He has come to drink and bathe," said Susanna.

He was hopping towards the water, on the other side of the brook, for a
poet the most prosaic-looking fellow, in the soberest brown coat.
Evidently he did n't dream that he was not alone. The trees had no
doubt hidden his watchers. But now Susanna's voice startled him. With
one wild glance at them, and a wild twitter of surprise, self-rebuke,
consternation, he bounded into the air, and in a second was a mere
speck again.

"Oh, how silly of him," Susanna sighed. "Does he think we are dragons?"

"No," said Anthony. "He would n't be half so frightened if he thought
we were dragons. He thinks we are much worse."

"Oh--?" guilelessly questioned she. "What is that?"

"He thinks we are human beings," Anthony explained.

Susanna laughed, but it was rather a rueful laugh.

"Anyhow," she said, "he 'll not come back so long as we remain here.
Yet he is hot and thirsty--and who knows from what a distance he may
have flown, just for this disappointment? Don't you think it would be
gracious on our part if we were to remove the cause of his alarm?"

She rose, and led the way out of the pine-grove, towards her house.
When they reached the open, it was to discover, walking together from
the opposite direction, Adrian and Miss Sandus,--Adrian bending towards
his companion in voluble discourse, which he pointed and underlined by
copious gesticulation.

"Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues," Anthony murmured, more or less
in his sleeve.

But at sight of him, Adrian halted, and struck an attitude.

"Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then he
turned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision of
loveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to think
of that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintan